Shadow Lands feels like a maintenance expansion [Extensive]

[nocturnus]

Great. Then don't buy it and stay "not playing". No one will be in tears due to your absence. I can't believe spergs write giant posts about stuff they don't like, trying to convince others to see it their way. So sad.

Maybe it's better if you stay away from forums, if sharing thoughts and opinions on video games gets you this wound up.

[TigTone]

Maybe it's better if you stay away from forums, if sharing thoughts and opinions on video games gets you this wound up.

Problem is some poster treat you like trash for liking a product they are no longer happy with.

That reason for that is different for every individual.

What’s wrong is the backlash for when others don’t agree on what’s Fun.

[WowClassic]

They already said the art team put the effort they'd normally put on a new class into new personalisation/appearance options, which are probably going to culminate in a massive change / new feature.

The fact this expansion focuses on improving what's already there is a positive. It doesn't need massive revamps to classes that leave them unrecognisable, it only needs to rediscover what made classes fun when they were at their best, such as during MoP.

Stop worrying about whether something is shiny and new or not, what matters is whether the end product is a more enjoyable game. Tacking on new features when the fundamentals are lacking doesn't work as has been made abundantly clear over the last few years.

[UnluckyAmateur]

Oh great, now the trend is gonna be "WoW's in maintenance mode" even though we're getting just as much stuff.

[Alcsaar]

They already said the art team put the effort they'd normally put on a new class into new personalisation/appearance options, which are probably going to culminate in a massive change / new feature.

The fact this expansion focuses on improving what's already there is a positive. It doesn't need massive revamps to classes that leave them unrecognisable, it only needs to rediscover what made classes fun when they were at their best, such as during MoP.

Stop worrying about whether something is shiny and new or not, what matters is whether the end product is a more enjoyable game. Tacking on new features when the fundamentals are lacking doesn't work as has been made abundantly clear over the last few years.

New personalization and appearance options don't actually impact gameplay mechanics which is why its disappointing that they chose to do that over actually making classes feel fun again. Nothing they've announced shows how classes will be improved or better. Adding a bunch of old abilities to the game that saw niche use at best isn't how you make classes fun again.

So what exactly are they improving that is already there? I didn't read about a single mechanical change to classes. Maybe I'm missing it. Classes feel broken right now, have for a couple expansions, and they have not announced any changes in regards to that.

[smitey]

Problem is some poster treat you like trash for liking a product they are no longer happy with.

That reason for that is different for every individual.

What’s wrong is the backlash for when others don’t agree on what’s Fun.

Take a deep breath, your giving yourself white hair.

[Merin]

Internal restrictions on staff, timeline and budget mixed with confusion on where to take this 15 year old monstrosity. Shouldering all of that while having a middling development vision doesn't product great results.

Game needs a sequel with a focused goal. Issue is even if they got that, a whole fresh start, I still don't think the actual talent is there to make a memorable product.

One thing I'll say is that there is no salvaging the writing anymore. The characters, the narrative, it's nearly impossible to care about any of it. It is absolutely astounding just how bad it is.

[wrynil]

This feel like a major patch not an expansion

This feels like a filler expansion

This feels like I don’t like what this games offers anymore

This feel like everyone should like what I like only

This feels this feel this feels this feels....

So far everything the expac looks like fun to me.

Can’t wait to Test my abilities in a that infinite dungeon.

This expansion feels perfectly fine to me and I like the theme of it.

[TigTone]

Take a deep breath, your giving yourself white hair.

There’s nothing in my post that suggests I’m upset or stressing

[Alcsaar]

This feel like a major patch not an expansion

This feels like a filler expansion

This feels like I don’t like what this games offers anymore

This feel like everyone should like what I like only

This feels this feel this feels this feels....

So far everything the expac looks like fun to me.

Can’t wait to Test my abilities in a that infinite dungeon.

To be fair I did preface my post by saying its largely based on speculations and my own personal opinions and biases.

[ro9ue]

II. Races/Classes

This is maybe my biggest disappointment in regards to expansion announcements. I kept waiting and hoping in each successive panel to hear about a new class or major class changes. I never heard it.

Preface: Adding back old abilities that were pruned is not an expansion feature. This is patch content. This would have fit perfectly in the 8.3.5 expansion pre-patch. This has no business being toted as an expansion feature.

Lack of a new class: I know people are split on this. Maybe we didn't necessarily need a new class, but we needed a new SOMETHING. Whether this is class reworks, or a new talent tree, or whatever.

WoW always released a new class on every other expansion. This was due to be the expansion for a new class, and we got nothing. Legitimately nothing game-play impacting to make up for the lack of some fresh class game play. No new class? Okay...weird. Major class changes should be coming then? Nope....not that either. The only "class changes" we've seen so far are adding back old abilities. Old abilities that see no use 98% of the time.

Each class gets one new skill depending on the covenant they choose, none of which were particularly interesting, inspiring, or game changing out of the announced ones. It is just another button you press every 30-60 seconds or so, where some classes might SLIGHTLY change their rotation to maximize the effectiveness of. None of these abilities are awe inspiring impressive. In fact for the most part they're really just....boring, and may as well not exist. Hell, the priest one is downright awful particularly for a shadow priest. Is the 50% less cast speed really necessary here? This ability might be okay for holy or even disc, but I wouldn't want to touch it on shadow. They had an opportunity here to create some really iconic class specific abilities and I think they really dropped the ball.

In addition to this, because the way covenants work, you're likely only ever going to use one class-specific covenant ability for the majority of the expansion, since everything Blizzard has stated regarding switching covenants at this point is a system designed in a way that punishes people for wanting to experience the other abilities/bonds. It seems really backwards to design 4 new abilities for each class, but only ever allow a player to really experience one of them.

The recent dev interviews have revealed that the reason we don't have a new class/race is because the art team took most of the time to work on adding new character customization options.

Uhg. Really? Character customization options that you don't see 95% of the time really trumps mechanical game play changes? Are we just going to see people hiding their armor now to show off their troll tattoos, even though a protection warrior battling some god-like boss naked is immersion destroying?

Character customization is another "Feature" that should have been in a major content patch - or at the very least it shouldn't have come at the cost of adding a new class or class reworks. Classes and specs are absolutely in shambles right now after Legion / BFA. They need a lot of work and as of right now we have heard zero on major class changes other than adding back old abilities that will see very little use and aren't particularly interesting.

TLDR;
Adding back old abilities is prepatch content, it is not an expansion feature. These abilities won't see use 98% of the time anyway.

Adding character customization options trumped adding a new class or giving classes a mechanical over haul to repair damage from Legion/BFA. Yikes. Hopefully they're doing major class fixes still and they just weren't ready to announce. The choices were to add a new class or fix previous classes and it doesn't appear they did either of those.

Character customization shouldn't trump mechanical game play changing development. It should be a major patch content addition instead of an expansion feature if they can't do both. This really sounds like a cop out / excuse.

The race/class section is the most concerning to me. I've always felt like the class you're playing is the vehicle by which you experience the entire game, and if that isn't fun, nothing else will be. Post Legion this was the case. Artifacts added a lot of interesting stuff for your class. BFA they pulled a few things off of that system and baked it in, and then replaced it with by far the worst character progression I've ever seen - the Azerite Traits. Like this ability? Cool, but now you got a higher ilevel helm and you have to replace it. Good luck getting another helm at the same ilevel with the ability you want.

Completely agree with giving back what they've taken away isn't an expansion feature. I was expecting a new class, and sure I was disappointed about that, but there is NO reason to not do ANYTHING with existing classes. In threads I said I'd be happy with no Tinker, no Dark Ranger, no any new class if they showed they put the work in elsewhere to make the existing 12 classes more interesting. Class skins, 4th specs, back to the drawing board with the prgoression UI, new talent tree design... literally anything.

Basically I thought, even if no new class, given the last 2 years of BFA had non existent character progression, we'd probably finally get to see all the work they put into revamping the base classes.

Like are they working on another game? Are they just happy with the way classes are atm? I wish someone could ask them.

This is by far the most important part of what makes this game fun to play. If your class isn't interesting to play, the game isn't.

[therealstegblob]

I feel mostly the same way the OP feels but I do want to mention that Anima is absolutely the new/same AP Grind. We're never, ever getting rid of mission tables and AP. They're both here to stay, in some capacity, for the rest of the game's life cycle.

[wysimdnwyg]

I. Covenants / Soulbinds
Covenants are a new take on the old Reputation grind that we've all come to love (hate). It's a completely new version of the BC-era Aldor/Scryer decision. Do you have to make a choice? Yes. Does it matter? Yes, which is nice compared to what we got with the A/S decision, which amounted to very little then and nothing now other that which elevator to go up. Plus, not only are you choosing one option, but three, and from four different Covenants. Sure, maybe you can't get the best option for all three, but figure out which is most important to you, and pick that one. Or maybe you just like the lore from one better. For my Rogue, the teleport is pretty much useless, so he'll go with the one that has a slow-fall. And since the mount and tmog gear isn't game-changing, those will just come along for the ride.

The Soulbinds seem like a good change on the now-old bodyguard concept. While my Priest liked having a follower to take a beating for me, my Rogue hated the things always pulling aggro while I'm stealthing around. Soulbinds have more flavor (talents!) and don't cause problems like the ones who literally follow you around, so this sounds good to me.

II. Races/Classes
We've gotten a new race and/or class with every expansion (sometimes both, sometimes multiple new races). What they HAVEN'T done before is give me the option to play a character with new looks, like an actual black or Asian Human, or a Wildhammer Dwarf. Even better, I'm hoping I will be able to take advantage of these new cosmetic options to change my existing characters without having to pay for a race change. And seriously, do we really need another class? Isn't a dozen enough?

III. Torghast / Maw
As a mostly solo player now, Torghast sounds awesome. I like dungeon crawls. I don't like having to deal with finding a group of random people whose only goal is to finish the dungeon as fast as possible. I want to do something hard without needing to find people who aren't complete morons or jerks to do it with. This is an absolute winner for me, and is reason enough on its own to give Shadowlands a try.

IV. Lore/Story
TBH, I find the predictability of the story a bit disappointing, especially on the heels of several variant "leaks" that all got the name right, and the basic premise, even if they missed most everything else. That said, the only expansion stories I've really been disappointed with to this point are BC (I know, most people loved this one), Cata, and BfA. If Blizzard can write an over-arching story that's as fascinating as Drustvar (which was fantastic, despite the rest of BfA being pretty lame), this could be their best expansion since Wrath. I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now, but I'll admit to my skepticism.

V. Leveling / Alts
The level squish was coming and we all knew it. I'm very intrigued by the updates they gave for leveling and alts, and I love the idea of being able to level in the expansion of my choice from 10-50. With the increased speed of leveling (I believe someone suggested 60-70% faster), I doubt any one expansion, played fully through, will run out of quests.


My overall impression is one of cautious optimism. That said, I'm subscribed (thanks tokens!), but haven't played in a few months now. I'll need a longer break before I can come back with any enthusiasm regardless of anything that might come with 9.0.

[TigTone]

To be fair I did preface my post by saying its largely based on speculations and my own personal opinions and biases.

Yup, to elaborate on my points I feel for you. It sucks this game no longer has what your looking for.
Hope you find something else or in the future game changes to something you may like.

Because I would be sad the day that happens to me.

[Alcsaar]

This is by far the most important part of what makes this game fun to play. If your class isn't interesting to play, the game isn't.

I agree completely with this. No matter how amazing the game itself is, if there isn't a class that I truly click with and love the play style of, I won't be able to play or enjoy the game. The class is the catalyst and should really receive the most development time in expansions to improve it. It seems like this expansion classes have been completely ignored based on what we have heard so far.

I've been largely playing the same caster classes since vanilla. Caster is the archetype I enjoy the most. I don't mind trying melee once in a while, but I need a good caster class too. The fact that we haven't seen a new dps caster added to the game by this point is astounding.

[Tiwack]

If these are your emphasis for a good expansion then you're only setting yourself up for continual disappointment. Development is always a matter of priority, you're free to take the piss on blizzard for not just hiring more people and appeasing everyone. The belief that they can't do a good expansion and maintain the current game at the same time is idiotic and there's plenty of evidence in the past to contest it.

[Soulwind]

Yeah, I think I agree with you on every point.

I do think the new customization options are a fine reason not to have new allied races on launch, and I personally don't mind not having a new class. But I think "class skins" would have been a perfect fit next to more character customization: "now your character looks better and their class fits their identity".

I imagine the Covenant system will mutate a lot throughout beta and over the course of the expansion, to the point where switching Covenant may just be restricted by a weekly cooldown, and the abilities they provide will either be changed to be way more situational, or just the same abilities with different appearances for each Covenant. I find it a bit shortsighted that they think they can pull this off the way they've announced. This is their eighth expansion, they should know better by now.

I am hopeful for Torghast, I think it could provide decent repeatable content and a challenge at the highest difficulties. Then again, I've always supported random/procedural evergreen features for WoW, and I kind of like Island Expeditions, so it seems up my alley anyway.

All in all, "something" is missing, and if the two main features don't succeed on providing fun daily/weekly content, the expansion will be a repeat of WoD.

[ro9ue]

I feel you here, *but* I have to retort with this suggestion, as it's how I've dealt with talents and the like for years now:

Good enough is good enough.

It is Blizzard's job to make everything good enough on the axis of covenant. Choose your covenant for character concept, and if you feel less powerful, give feedback. Life's too short to be fretting if a 0.0001% power gain can be obtained by binding your necro concept character to pretty fae land. Play your character. 99.999% of the people reading this forum aren't on the tier where betraying concept for numbers will matter. If your friends demand you do that, find better friends. The people that will make that choice don't play with friends, they play with coworkers, and WoW is their job.

Good enough is good enough. That's why it's called good enough, because it is, indeed, good enough.

I somewhat agree on this point. I'm not going to pick a covenant based on some 5% numerical benefit, I'm going to pick based on mechanics and theme. So for example, maybe you're a Death Knight and you play Unholy and Blood. Necrolord sounds like a lot of mechanics will line up thematically with Unholy, and the Vampires will line up a lot with Blood. You can only pick one. I have no idea how this will play out, but it actually makes the game slightly more interesting to me. I used to like when spec mattered more and it was like ok you play either but you're primarily a Blood DK...

So every single Blood DK won't look like every other Blood DK. If one picks Necrolord they'll look like an undead general, and have maybe some cooler looking undead minion (since they're getting Raise Dead back) and if the other goes Vampire they may have more life leech, and look different.

They didn't talk about any of the mechanics for the Soulbinds yet so we'll have to see how it plays out, but if they are actually meaningful choices this could be pretty neat.

Also want to add... this could make alts of the same class more interesting. Previously there wasn't much of a reason to roll an alt of the same class other than if you wanted just another race combo.

Now if you play Shadowlands... you might want a DK you can go Necrolord with and a DK you can go Vamp with. However, Blizzard will need to make the swapping of Covenant tough enough so that just swapping isn't so much easier than making a new toon. We'll see what they do.

[Toby451]

Your TLDR is too long I need a TLDR of the TLDR

TLDR:TLDR: I am super fucking jaded and would have cried about how shitty Blizzard is no matter what to prove how edgy and cool I am.

[iosdeveloper]

I guess key people left cuz they knew what's coming and didn't want to be a part of that.
Mike Morhaime may have been against this half assed attitude, so he was fired.

Blizzard is dead like Apple, imo